SimCity Update #4 is penned by EA Maxis SVP Lucy Bradshaw, who is "happy to report that the core problem with getting in and having a great SimCity experience is almost behind us," saying they have "reduced game crashes by 92% from day one." She admits she's not able to offer the "all clear" for the game she'd hoped to, but seems optimistic that they've turned the corner from the game's rocky launch. There's also a new tweet on the SimCity account quickly walking back from this tweet they posted over the weekend which said: "We have no intention of offlining SimCity any time soon but we'll look into that as part of our earning back your trust efforts." It seems there is a disagreement among the operators of their twitter account, because the new update states this isn't actually possible: "The game was designed for MP, we sim the entire region on the server so this is just not possible."

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Re: SimCity: Now With 92% Less Crashing; Maxis Walks Back from Offline Comment

Creston wrote on Mar 11, 2013, 11:31:Except, of course, that complaining against DRM has worked time and time again. Without complaints and boycotts, Starforce would still be fucking over a huge amount of computers on a daily basis. Without complaining and boycotts, Ubisoft would still be as retarded as EA. Without complaining and boycotts, every game would come with a three-machine activation limit. Without boycotts and complaining, TAGES would still be in use by a large amount of publishers, rather than solely being forced upon legitimate customers by Deep Silver. (Enjoy it when it ships with Saints Row 4, guys...)

DRM is not a given, it's not some unalienable burden that man has to subject himself to like taxes, and it's sure as fuck not time to stop fucking complaining about it.

People do, however, need to realize that complaining about it on a forum while at the same time buying the DRM in question serves no purpose whatsoever. Hello, everyone who bought Diablo 3! (and SimCity!)

Creston

Lots of games these days advertise "DRM-free" as a selling point: everything on Gog.com and the new Tex Murphy Fedora Project just for starters. DRM is not only not a given it's actually a prime reason some games don't sell as well as they should. Some developers get it--some don't. Heck, not only do I pass on DRM, I won't even buy a game that doesn't "save anywhere, anytime"! I pass on console fare.

But deliberately designing an advertised single-player game to require an EA server just to play the game is not really even "honest" DRM, it's just manipulative and sneaky. If they want to change the SimCity advertising to say "Multiplayer only and only on EA servers," fine. That's at least being honest, and honesty is EA's entire problem here. Had they been honest from the beginning they'd have had far fewer sales and the problems might not even have manifested.

I'm still curious about the OS X ram requirements for the game being 2x what they are for Windows--sure sounds like a D3d-to-OpenGL wrapper to me at the moment...;) Wow--that would be something I haven't seen in years--not since my 3dfx days.

It is well known that I do not make mistakes--so if you should happen across a mistake in anything I have written, be assured that I did not write it!